The present invention relates generally to audio transmission, receiving, and playback systems, and is more specifically directed to a system that automatically disseminates user-preferred audio recordings from a service center to a receiving unit at the user's location, and wherein the receiving unit uses a standard recording recorder or recorder/player to record the audio information onto a medium from which it can be played back, such as audio cassette tape.
Change lies at the heart of innovation. Our world, the way we view it, and the way we live changes daily. The advent of high speed communications technology such as Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) over standard residential-grade Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) wires and cable modems for use over CAble TeleVision or Community Antenna TeleVision (CATV) networks has opened the door to a host of new and exciting possibilities for everyday people. By providing a high-speed data link directly to the consumer's home, these technologies promise to deliver a whole host of new services. Further, the recent ruling by the FCC regarding line-sharing helps to ensure that high speed data links will be available to everyone, not just a privileged few. In the days to come, when every household has a data link with One Megabit per second throughput, or more, the norms we have become familiar with today will be challenged. Just as people's idea of entertainment changed with the development of broadcasting technology, from radio to television, so too will people's idea of information gathering and retrieval change. We will watch as the things around us evolve into something perhaps not completely different, but into something new. However, to depart from the present wisdom of our financial world, we should not assume the obvious. The presence of inexpensive, high-speed data links into the home does not guarantee that every household in society will instantly have an overwhelming desire to connect to the Internet. Nor should we assume that every home can afford the expense associated with owning a personal computer. There are many potential uses of high-speed data links into the home, literally a world of future possibilities. Digital subscriber lines (DSL) and cable modems are technologies that enable the value-added tools of the future. Some of these tools do not require a personal computer in order to yield benefits to society from the communications revolution. If used correctly high-speed data links into the home have tremendous potential not just in the field of the Internet, but in the field of audio transmission, receiving, and playback systems.
People have a need for information. To satisfy this need people read books, listen to the radio, or watch television. For example, parishioners who attend a local church do so because they have a need to learn more about God. Traditionally the way to absorb information from a local church is to attend the regularly scheduled church meetings. In these meetings the Pastor of the church gives a sermon. Some sermons are dull, meandering speeches that delve into personal details about the Pastor's life that no one wants to hear. Other sermons detail the miracles, works of God, teaching, and aftermath of the wondrous life of Jesus Christ, a testimony to people everywhere. In a more modern church the way people absorb information can be by attending the church service, by going to a classroom teaching on a specific religious topic, or by listening to an audio cassette tape that contains a prerecorded message. All of these options involve a considerable time investment on the part of the parishioner, but time is the one thing that people in today's society do not have enough of. The parishioner must spend the time to drive to church and listen to the service. Likewise for a class, the parishioner must spend the time to drive to church and listen to the teacher. If the parishioner buys an audio cassette he/she must wait in line, order, and perhaps wait again for the order to be filled. Some would say that this is time well spent. Others would argue that there is a better way for people to get the information they want quickly, more easily, and without spending time unnecessarily. What if just the information content that would normally be placed on an audio tape could be sent directly to the person's home, in a similar fashion to the way mail is delivered to the person's mailbox? What if this could be done cheaply, making use of high-speed data links, without the requirement that the user own a personal computer?
The present invention provides a better way to deliver customized audio information to the people who live in today's world. A world where people do not have the time to learn how to play with complicated contraptions. A world where people need and want affordable technology that makes life easier and that saves time. A world populated by everyday people who do not own a personal computer and can't afford to spend three-hundred dollars on the latest high-tech toy that will be outdated or forgotten about four months from now. The present invention provides a way to send information directly to the user's home where it will be recorded onto standard magnetic audio cassette tape, or an equivalent medium that is widely used and widely available, for future use by the user at a time and place of the user's own choosing.
Previous inventions focused on the delivery of video and audio such that the delivery of audio information was treated like an afterthought. The art detailed in the patents disclosed by Yurt et al., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,132,992, 5,253,275, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,550,863, do an excellent job of detailing practical transmission and reception systems. However the patents describe distribution systems that rely on the user to interactively make direct selections from the library of available audio recording. Audio recordings are not distributed automatically to the user, increasing the amount of time and effort put forth by a user in order to receive information. In addition, the system is not designed for mass distribution to a potentially large population of users, no mention is made of resource conservation on either the transmitting side or the receiving side of the system.
Schulhof et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5841979, discloses a system that automatically downloads audio recordings to a form of portable storage media. The receiving system is not capable of interfacing with a standard recording device. It cannot automatically download audio recordings to standard audio cassette tape.
The inventions disclosed by Satoh U.S. Pat. No. 5,055,947 and Eisele U.S. Pat. No. 5,159,182 detail the use of specialized devices designed to fit inside the body of a normal audio cassette tape. Lau et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,790,423, details an ingenious system where the cassette can interface with a standard magnetic tape playback device. However these inventions ignore one of the greatest attributes of audio cassette recorders, namely, their use of standard off-the-shelf audio cassette tapes. The popularity of audio cassette recorders has given rise to widespread use of audio cassette tapes. These tapes are available everywhere, from supermarkets to local convenience stores. Their widespread use not only makes audio cassette tapes widely available, but quite affordable. The inventions mentioned above do not use ordinary audio cassette tapes.
VanLeeuwen U.S. Pat. No. 5,654,747 and Hendricks U.S. Pat. No. 5,990,927 describe inventions that can generate electromagnetic control signals in order to control a standard VCR. This is similar to one of the alternative embodiments of the present invention. However the focus in the art mentioned above is on the control of a VCR, a device designed to present video primarily. The material does not address the need to control standard audio recording devices. In addition, the inventions do not address the issue of controlling standard recording devices that do not make use of an electromagnetic controller.
When one considers the history of audio transmission, receiving, and playback systems one can think of a number of systems that are capable of transmitting audio and or video recordings to remote locations. U.S. Pat. No. 4,829,372 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,191,410 issued to McCalley et al. describe systems of this type. U.S. Pat. No. 5,874,986 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,440,336 issued to Gibbon et al. and Buhro et al., respectively, also relate to similar systems. These approaches usually combine video data with audio data so that the video requirements dictate the complexity of the receiving system, the size of the receiver's storage capacity, and the breadth of the information distribution. In addition many of these systems require that users interactively download information from a central library, and thereby make the assumption that users have the time to engage in this type of activity. Few address the need to download audio recordings onto cassette tapes, a storage media widely used, available, and familiar to everyday people. None automatically download audio recordings to standard audio cassette tape using a standard recording device. None are intended to deliver audio information to a large user base on a regular, repetitive basis.
What is needed is a system that can 1) distribute customized information to a wide base of users making full use of system resources and thereby lowering the cost of the system, 2) transmit audio recordings at a fraction of their normal audible playback time, 3) transmit and receive messages at times which are advantageous to both the sender and recipient, and 4) automatically deliver the audio recordings, with minimal user interaction, onto media that is widely used and available.
Other approaches relevant to this concept are discussed, for example, in RFC 793 Transmission Control Protocol. J. Postel. 9/1/89; RFC 1095 Common Management Information Services and Protocol over TCP/IP. U.S. Warrier, L. Besaw. Sep. 1, 1989; and RFC 1157 Simple Network Management Protocol. J. D. Case, M. Fedor, M. L. Schoffstall, C. Davin May 1, 1990